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Free Stats Discussion, No Skill Required Champion, and a focus on Master Yi

Proxyminers·4/26/2014, 2:03:55 PM·1 votes·1,062 views

The discussion about free stats has been brought up by riot them self in the past. They really don't like it as it makes balance issues a problem or in another light, just not fun. So lets discuss No Skill Required Champion.

A no skill required champion is built into the game in order to help new players succeed at the game. It is like every game out there, however, usually No Skill Required champions are good but not godly. With the recent changes to Wiggles; aka FF self upgrade item for the jungle, Master Yi; a solid hyper ad carry jungler; is not balanced at all. Unlike most No Skill Required champions, Master Yi becomes a very powerful God like champion with items, usually just 3 items will push him over the top to almost too good, which many other champions can still be countered with just 3 items, Master Yi's kit enhances his main 3 items to a point of: This is not fun to face against.

So what is it about Master Yi that in short terms needs to be addressed; aka changed/nerf? Master Yi has free stats from his E (10% AD) forever. Not that bad as it doesn't scale very strong early game and to be equal to other champions, he needs about 400 AD to have the same amount roughly as Fiora gains from her W. His R gives a passive reset, usually just enough to reset his Q (Alpha Strike). This reset rework is what makes master yi a No Skill Required Champions and to be serious isn't a major issue as he can still be focused and die as he is an assassin type champion. His Q Gives Mini Crit damage. This actually helps him in the jungle and clear minion waves which isn't a bad thing, but may be too much vs champions as it really does boost his overall Damage upon 1 Alpha Strike mid to end game when he has 50% crit chance. Master Yi's R: Active; Gives Speed Boost, Gives Attack Speed, Gives Immunity to Slow.

I think out of all the things this champion gets, something has to go to keep him in check. I personally believe Master Yi needs the Singed treatment; aka a solid counter to his Active (R) ability.

For those who do not know or do not remember; Singed was nerfed a while back. It was the correct nerf and I stand here to say it was a way to put Singed back into the fray of top role champions. They removed Tenacity from his Active Ult as he too had many steroid buffs; ability power, armor, magic resistance, movement speed, health and mana regeneration per 5 seconds and Tenacity which stacked with Item Tenacity and Mastery Tenacity. Riots main point was that Singed was just too powerful with his ult as there was no real way to shut him down. So they took Tenacity away.

Back to Master Yi.

Master Yi is not a bruiser or a tank. He is a Hyper Carry AD Assassin base champion; meaning he can be shut down pretty easy with a decent focus. However, this doesn't mean he is balanced for idea of counter play.

Back to Master Yi's Ult (R) ability. I think taking away his immunity to slow effects is just what this champion needs. You don't want to take away the other two stats as they are exactly what Master Yi represents: High attack speed (AS) and high movement speed (MS).

TL/DR: Balance Master Yi with a Singed Nerf; take Master Yi's Immunity to slows with his ult activate and don't touch his damage.

8 Comments

JsKingBoo4/26/2014, 3:01:57 PM4 votes

Master Yi isn't a no-skill required champion. Sure, he has a very low skill floor, but he has a very high skill cap. You have to know when to Q to dodge or tank it with W, when to use E and R in the middle of teamfights, when to run or fight, if you can pull out a surprise victory, etc

nameswap24/26/2014, 3:45:59 PM1 votes

Master Yi's ult is not the problem when it comes to balance. It's just how much Synergy is in master Yi's kit.

Everything in his kit scales with itself.

His passive scales with his ult + his E. His Q scales with his passive + his R. His E scales with his passive + his R. His ult scales with on hit abilities + his E.

That's why getting one or two items makes him so strong. Since everything in his kit scales with eachother, getting something that benefits all of skills (feral flare) is pretty easy and makes master yi so gold efficient.

As for proposed changes, I'm not sure whether or not making Yi not immune to slows will help. It may make him weaker, but it's more of a band-aid fix than anything.

The problem that Master Yi has is that before, he used to be forced to lane in order to get some gold for items to get going. Yi jungle was okay back when it was just wriggles, as 1650 gold allowed him to farm fairly well and get some items and the stats helped him make an impact mid game.

Feral flare just made that advantage a lot more brutal because he now gained some extremely cost efficient combat stats mid game(on top of having all of those stats benefit every single one of his skills). The change to wriggle's lantern turned letting Master Yi compete with spirit stone junglers to letting Master Yi outdamage and outduel all spirit stone junglers once he gets flare.

I think something along the lines of reducing the damage flare gives (maybe 1/4 of damage to monsters), and increasing the healing it gives would make it lean towards more of the "farm the jungle" fantasy.

It also lets the jungler stay in the jungle more to farm with increased healing, at the cost of reduced jungle pressure which gives spirit stone junglers a window to counter feral flare.

utDOOM4/26/2014, 4:19:14 PM1 votes

Yi doesn't need a nerf. He needs the slow immunity. CC shuts down Yi very hard; just like every other assassin. Yi is made to stick to someone and kill them; which isn't possible if he doesn't have slow immunity. Its how his kit is built. Yi take alot more skill than people think. Its not as simple as hitting Q and R and killing everyone. A Yi has to know when to go in and who to go in on. Especially in teamfights.

FF yi is Op. However, it takes a long time to stack, which gives you time to shut him down with a strong early game jungler. Yi is just like any other hypercarry. if you let him farm for free, your throwing the game. Most hypercarrys like yi and vayne are weak pre 6.

Master Yis Alpha Strike is his only defense. It makes him invulnerable while dealing a good amount of damage, and can be chained. As a melee carry he NEEDS this.

Even though Yi can become really strong with just 3 items, that doesn't make him OP. Vayne can 3-shot people with 3 items if she is ahead, but she isn't considered as OP as yi is. Yi just takes less skill than Vayne does.

Singed was nerfed because free Tenacity on a tank is OP. What made the free tenacity even more OP is the way that his kit works. Yi is different. He is squishy and melee. The only way that he can survive in a teamfight is to lifesteal. If his ult didn't give him slow immunity, then he would be kited and peeled and become totaly useless.

TLDR: Yi isn't OP and needs that slow immunity in his kit.

(If there are any mistakes, its cause i'm in a hurry)

Cosmic Warper4/26/2014, 5:01:06 PM1 votes

2 words; Crowd Control

the Anarchit3cht4/26/2014, 7:37:32 PM1 votes

Hard CC. Stuns, snares. He has damage, but he gets killed just as quickly. You stun or snare him and he's basically dead. Carry exhaust(summoner 3) , too. It might not slow him down, but it reduces his damage by 50%. He will think twice about diving in on you if you can negate half his damage or lock him down when he does.

That aside, Yi is easy to pick up, but hard to Master. A good Yi knows when to go in and when not to go in. He knows when to Alpha Strike, Meditate etc. A bad yi, or someone who is not as skilled with Yi will have major inconsistencies when it comes to timing these abilities, and any half decent player will capitalize on these and punish him hard. That being said, he is a bit of a Feast or Famine character. If he is doing good, he usually does REALLY good. If he's doing bad? Well then basically all he can do is split push.

Proxyminers5/3/2014, 7:56:35 PM1 votes

Low skill champions are in just; no skill required champions. Its a harsh term but it means roughly the same thing. The issue with master yi as compared to other low skill champions is that master yi is an assassin but item build can make him super deadly.

For example, if Yi builds 2 tanky items like omen and warmogs & then goes 4 dps items, CC wont kill him. Glass Cannon Yi it will, but bruiser yi, does not die to a CC. Master Yi has a kit that is meant to teach people how to attack quick and kill quick, but that kit when used by people who master him or even know how to build him more effectively, is what is making him unbalanced.

Not many people play bruiser Yi, but lets look at jungle Yi. This Yi is part of the problem with the jungle that Riot is dealing with. Alpha Strike is just too powerful in the Jungle and FF is just too powerful for Yi as he is an AS based champion which is what FF scales very hard with. Yi is not the only champion that is AS base that FF scales out of control with, Jax is another example.

Master Yi has a very potent kit which is why he is in the lower skill cap than say a Jax. Jax is a mid tier champion for skill as you have to know when you can use wards to leap over things, know when to use you E and when to premature use of E to get that stun, etc.

I want to attack Master Yi's kit, not Master Yi the champion. This is the only way of fixing Yi, remove immune to slows.

You have to look at everything everyone has mentioned about Master Yi. His kit is too good, he scales with items too well, his kit scales even higher with items, etc. He has too many scaling issues and yet he still has a single super weakness; Hard CC like every champion does. You can not say that is a valid excuse for Master Yi. Every champion is hurt by Hard CC, not a single champion gains anything from being hit by a Hard CC.

So back to the discussion of how to address Master Yi.

The best way to fix Jungle Yi is to make FF deal less damage and lower Alpha Strike damage to Monsters.

However, Best way to keep assassins in the jungle is to not force support junglers on the player base as this will force meta which is the Opposite of what LoL represents.

I believe that once Master Yi is picked up in the LCS, People will see how strong this champion is and he does in fact synergy with teams with the current meta.

If you have a trundle or renekton top and able to get a tanky support that can peel, You will have 3 carries in your game and that is enough to be game changing in itself.

I don't want Master Yi's damage to be nerfed on champions because he succeeds at what he is meant to do. So I say a good band aid nerf is better than a destroy a champion nerf that we so often see.

Proxyminers5/20/2014, 6:22:07 PM1 votes

To continue the discussion of Master Yi. I would like to also discuss Mastery Yi's (W): Meditate.

This ability really needs to heal so much more at lower levels. It should have a purpose as you are forced to rank into it at level 5 since you put 1 rank into your E since the bonus AD is capped at 10% at all ranks and you can't put anymore ranks into Alpha Strike until level 6 (which is the Ult rank), so basically level 7 for rank 4 of Alpha Strike.